Amotekun: Yoruba World Congress backs Akeredolu, Makinde
By Bukola Adeoti
The Yoruba World Congress, (YWC) has expressed full support for the position of Governors of Oyo and Ogun States following their stance of Amotekun, the South West Security Network, (SWSN)
The leader of the YWC, Prof Banji Akintoye said
“We support and reinforce the stand of Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State and his Oyo State counterpart, Governor Seyi Makinde, that the Southwest security outfit codenamed Amotekun shall not be subsumed under the control of the Nigeria Police Force.”
Akintoye noted that Amotekun, as rightly posited by the governors, is an independent security outfit necessitated by the clear danger of murderous herdsmen internationally accepted as terrorists, heartless bandits and sundry criminals who have turned Yorubaland into killing fields.
“It was also the failure of the existing security architecture to tackle the menace and secure life and property in the Southwest region that led to the clamour for Amotekun by the generality of our people. It makes no sense, therefore, to put the same Amotekun under an organisation that has proved incapable and inadequate to provide the much-needed security in the first place”, the YWC stated.
The group said that putting Amotekun under the Nigerian Police hierarchy is a ploy to weaken it and sabotage the strident clamour of the people of the Southwest for peace and security in their homeland.
Akintoye said it must be noted that the entire Southwest rose like one man to demand and support Amotekun and to resist all efforts to truncate its birth.
“We, therefore, see the efforts to twist the hands of Yoruba governors to whittle down Amotekun as a continuation of the same ploy to abort this regional security outfit,” the group said.
The group saluted the stance, courage and principled stand of Governors Akeredolu and Makinde on the independence of Amotekun and call on other Southwest governors to follow suit.
It called on all Yoruba sons and daughters at home and abroad to stand up in support of Amotekun and speak out against efforts or plans to muffle it.
It demanded that the security of the Southwest must not be compromised in any form and under any guise.
YWC called on those trying to toy with Amotekun to desist forthwith.
“We have the inalienable right to security of life and property. We therefore stand solidly with the Southwest governors as they strive to protect life and property”
It noted that as a federation, different layers of security outfits should collaborate, rather than one outfit trying to prevent the others from contributing their own quota. The Nigerian constitution supports supplementary security outfits as has been the case in parts of Northern Nigeria.
The YWC said the central policing system has failed adding that community and or multi-layer security system is an idea whose time has come.
“Trying to prevent it is like swimming against the tide with dire consequences” Akintoye said
